By Certain Definitions of Normal
by Libek
Summary: Just a few Avengers, doing what they do best. And the Hulk, who needs rather gentler handling. Why is Tony so good at this, when he's so lousy with everything else remotely people-skills related? Written for a prompt where, post-Hulk hug, Bruce wakes up to find Tony Stark in his arms. Until that point, it was pretty gen.


It started out as a pretty normal day, for the _weird_ that was becoming his new normal.

A giant, rampaging squidmonsterthing attacked Midtown, Tony put on his suit, and the other available Avengers did what they did best.

Cap directed them, Barton fired about ten arrows directly into the thing's eye socket. When it reared up in pain, he took a quick spin around with his repulsors, blasting its vulnerable underbelly, and then the Hulk jumped about sixty floors straight _up_ to punch it right in its throbbing, creepy, tentacle-laden mouth.

Yep. Just another Tuesday.

"Barton?" Rogers's voice came through over their commlink, slightly tinny.

"He's down," Barton confirmed, "and not getting back up anytime soon. Dead, I think, but I'm having trouble picking out a pulsepoint. Could be faking."

"Sure," Tony agreed easily. "Because this is New York, and all the aspiring young actors come here."

Down on the ground, he could see the Hulk prowling around the squidthing's face - or, you know, as close as it had to a face - and if he hadn't known better, he might have said the jolly green giant looked... dejected.

Tony circled once, then went into a controlled descent until he was almost, but not quite, within reach.

Over the commlink, he could still hear Barton and the Captain talking very seriously about alien biology with knowledge they had obviously gleaned almost entirely from old sci-fi shows and one time Rogers had dissected a frog for school in 1875 or whatever. Tony tuned them out, opened his face mask, and addressed the only guy here he could have had an intelligent conversation with - in a tone usually reserved for two-year-olds.

"Hey there, big guy," he said.

The Hulk spun, then squinted at him. Idly Tony wondered if he had Bruce's nearsightedness. Giving the Hulk an eye exam was never gonna be practical, but it would've been kind of neat either way.

"Metal man!" the Hulk pronounced after a moment, and then settled down so heavily that the (to be fair, already-damaged) concrete caved in a little under him.

"Iron Man," Tony reminded him, and hovered in closer. "And we've been over this before. It's Tony."

The Hulk just frowned up at him, and for maybe the first time in his life Tony Stark wished he were better with kids.

"Metal man's fine. Something wrong?" he tried, setting down on a nearby pile of - well, rubble. About an hour ago, it had been a Starbucks. So, you know. Tragic, obviously.

The Hulk got to his feet again and turned to slam one enormous fist into the squidmonsterthing's face. Being dead, it didn't really react. "Not smash!" the Hulk complained.

Tony tried to reassure him. "You smashed it pretty good."

"_Not. Smash,_" the Hulk repeated, petulant now, and giving him this look - as if _he_ were the stupid one here.

Which, to be honest, kind of got on Tony's nerves. Almost no one _ever_ talked to him like that, and the few people who _did_ were pretty easily put in their place.

Too bad there wasn't a lot he could do to put the Hulk anywhere, especially if it was a place he didn't want to be.

"...Fine," Tony said. "Not smash. But we can't do any more smashing here."

Technically speaking, he supposed it wouldn't have made all that much difference. This part of the city had already been evacuated, and rescue crews probably wouldn't be done taking care of all the people for hours, so they basically had the place to themselves and there wasn't that much more damage even the Hulk could _do_.

But it was the principle of the thing.

"Hulk knows," the Hulk replied, and - and on any other face, _at any other time_, Tony would have called that expression a pout.

"Stark." That was Barton's voice. They must have spotted him. Uh-oh, here came the babysitters. "What are you doing?"

"Not much," Tony said breezily. "Just chatting up our friendly neighborhood uncontrollable rage monster."

There was a sudden silence on the other end, and then Rogers' voice filtered in. "Talking? To the Hulk? About - what?"

Tony watched as the Hulk drew bored shapes in the broken asphalt with thick fingers. "Oh, you know. Stuff. What he wants to be when he grows up. His day so far. He's feeling very unfulfilled right now, because the squidthing didn't put up that much of a fight."

It was worth it just for the reactions: "Are you kidding me, it leveled six city blocks!" from Rogers, and Barton's more thoughtful, "He's got a point, I didn't even use half my quiver."

"Well-" Poor Cap, he sounded like he was having a very hard time with these words. "What does he... want?"

Tony thought about that. Then he said, "Good question," and started to step down off the rubble pile. "Hey, JARVIS, can you block all incoming transmissions? Thanks."

"Sir," JARVIS said, even as the protests of his team mates went abruptly silent, "this is not a wise course of action. Probability of grievous bodily injury at 72% and holding."

"Not for long," Tony told him, and muted him too.

The Hulk was watching his approach curiously.

"So," Tony said. "If you can't smash, what would you - you know - _like_ to do?"

The Hulk furrowed his enormous green brow, and for an instant there was something more familiar in his face. He got the same small crease, just off center, when he was thinking.

Then the expression cleared into the terrifying show of teeth that was a Hulk smile.

"Hulk want story!" he declared.

Tony thought about that, too. Then he sat down and said, "Okay. I can do that."

This was his life now. The weirdest thing that happened to him today _wasn't_ going to be fighting off a squidmonsterthing the size of a Good Year blimp.

In his ear, a burst of static, and then Barton's voice came in again. "Stark, what the hell kind of game are you playing here."

"I'm telling him a story," Tony said, perfectly reasonable. "JARVIS, what did I just ask you to do?"

"He overrode my security protocols," JARVIS replied unflinchingly. "If you'll recall, you chose to mute me, and so I was unable to warn you." He did not sound especially apologetic.

Tony ignored them all. "Once upon a time," he began determinedly, "there lived three little bears."

"How little?" the Hulk demanded at once, and Tony was suddenly very sure this was going to work.

Good. He always felt better when his plans got to that stage.

"Bear-sized," Tony said.

"Stark," Barton snapped in his ear, "I swear to god-"

"You can try, but last I heard he was still in Candy Land. You know, we make a great team, but I make an even better solo artist. Watch the master."

And then, Tony began to dismantle his suit, listening cheerfully to the sound of Barton's response being swallowed up as he stepped out of it. Now they'd have to actually come down here to whine at him, which would probably give him about - oh, eight or nine minutes for story time. He stepped clear of the suit and left it as a neat metal briefcase on the ground behind him.

"So," he said to the Hulk, "like I was saying, before we were so rudely interrupted. There was a momma bear, a daddy bear, and a baby bear, because the nuclear family hadn't been invented yet. Otherwise there'd be two baby bears and whatever the bear equivalent of a dog is."

The Hulk listened raptly. He was probably one of the best audiences Tony had ever had, except for the almost total silence. "Little bears," he repeated, as if proud.

"That's right," Tony told him. "And they all lived together in a house in the woods."

That made the Hulk laugh. "Bears in house!"

"There were probably some logistical problems, I'll grant you," Tony agreed. "No opposable thumbs. Narrow doorways. Smell of wet fur in the morning after Momma Bear spends forever in the shower."

"Stupid bears," the Hulk said.

"Sure," Tony said. "Although, I mean, they can talk. So they must be smarter than the _average_ bear." He couldn't quite stop the tiny smile. "But I think the house was probably a mistake. Housing bubble. Made it look like everyone should be a homeowner."

This was where Bruce would've laughed. The Hulk only watched him uncertainly.

"-Anyway," Tony said. "There was also a little girl. Way littler than the bears. And I guess her parents weren't all that creative, because they named her Goldilocks. After her curly blond hair. And, why not, I mean. They were pretty terrible parents all around, since they never taught her not to break into other people's houses and steal stuff."

The Hulk scowled. "No steal," he said, very firmly.

"Well," Tony said, thinking of - but no, the Hulk really, really wasn't going to care about intellectual property rights. "Right. No steal."

"Goldie bad," the Hulk decided.

"Not really a role model," Tony said. "Anyway, she got lost in the woods. I think." Actually, most of the story was kind of a blur to him before the porridge part. And after. "And she sees the bears' house, so in she goes. Without even knocking."

Rogers landed almost soundlessly on the awning across the street. Tony tried to wave him off. Couldn't they see that this was working out just fine?

Apparently not.

"Stark!" Rogers called in a very audible whisper. "Are you completely crazy? What did you do with your suit?!"

Tony turned to face him. "Oh come on, seriously-"

But that was as far as he got before a really, really big green hand shot out and grabbed him by the waist and _wow_, you just did not know what _big_ was until there were fingers as thick as your arm wrapped around your torso.

Rogers froze and he was already saying into his commlink, "Hawkeye, do you have a shot!?" when the Hulk pulled Tony back, hard, into what felt an awful lot like-

-a hug.

"Metal man stay!" the Hulk demanded. "More story!"

The look on Cap's face almost made the near _heart attack_ worth it.

"Well," Tony said, willing his heart rate back down to normal, and thinking this was probably another level in weird right here, "you heard Andre. I guess I'll be finishing that story."

"And another!" the Hulk added excitedly.

Which _might_ - Tony wasn't committing to anything, but _might_ - have put a slight damper on his self-congratulatory smirk.

Rogers hesitated, looking from one of them to the other. "...We're not going far," he said. "But - honestly, Stark? I don't know that we're going to be able to bring him down in time, if things go bad."

Tony really, really hated it when people tried to do basic math for him. "I think we've got this covered," he said, patting the gargantuan arm around him. "Right, big guy?"

"Story!" the Hulk said eloquently. Tony took that for a yes.

He could tell Rogers was still unhappy about it, but he retreated back to his rooftop and let Tony finish his story. At which point, true to his word, the Hulk wanted another.

And another.

Around the tale of Snow White and the Vertically-Challenged Diamond Miners, though, the Hulk's eyelids started to droop, and Tony only got about halfway through Hansel and Gretel: A Cautionary Tale of Childhood Obesity before he rolled over and went right to sleep.

All according to plan. Tony would have patted himself on the back, except for one really very minor problem: the Hulk hadn't exactly... let go of him first.

Tony spent a few long minutes trying to lift the arm by himself. There was no way it was going to happen, of course. The Hulk probably weighed a million pounds. But he had to _try_, at least.

"Well," Barton's voice said, and when Tony looked up he and Rogers had come back down. "This looks cozy."

"Very funny," Tony grunted, and gave the arm another futile push. "Little help here?"

He hadn't really thought of it as a request, because he hadn't really thought they would hesitate. Definitely not _Captain friggin' America_, anyway. Of course they were going to help him.

But they just stood above him, and Barton cocked his head to the side. "I'm sorry, did you say help?"

"I thought you had this covered," Rogers agreed.

"I'm still watching the master," Barton added.

Tony stared up at them, and groaned. "Okay," he said, and maybe it was a little embarrassing that he was slightly out of breath from his exertions here. _Maybe_ he needed to get in more time at the gym or something. "Fun's fun. I take back, like. Point-two percent of what I said. In this _one_ situation, I do kind of need a team. But we all know you guys aren't really going to leave me here."

They did.

Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes turned into a little over an hour.

"You guys suck," Tony said to thin air, when he was sure they really weren't coming back.

He couldn't reach his suit like this, but even if he had been able to Tony had some serious reservations about his ability to a.) get into it with the Hulk wrapped around him, b.) get up to full power before the Hulk woke up, and c.) successfully escape from the Hulk's embrace, even _with_ full power, once the big guy was awake. He just didn't have enough space, or enough leverage, to build up a high enough speed to exert the kind of force he'd need.

Plus, there was always the chance that, _when_ he woke up, the Hulk would be cranky. The big guy probably needed his naptime.

So, eventually, Tony surrendered to the inevitable and settled down to wait.

Half an hour after that, the Hulk began to snore.

_Okay,_ Tony Stark decided, _that's enough weird for one day._

..o..

The sun was just starting to set and Tony had lost all feeling in his legs when he noticed it finally happening - the arm around him just... slowly losing mass, like a deflating balloon.

At some point, he had let his eyes shut, maybe even dozing a little in the sun, so Tony opened them now and turned his head to watch.

Muscle shrank. The hand that had spent the better part of the last five hours pinning him to concrete dust and debris became smaller and smaller, until it was just resting - sort of _gently_ - on his chest.

The most interesting part was definitely the chest hair, Tony decided. Chest and arm hair. The Hulk didn't have any, but Bruce did, dark and soft.

Or maybe the Hulk _did_ have hair, and it was just green, too? Or hard to notice, because of everything else going on around you while you were trying to get a good look at a giant green chest?

The way he was currently getting a really, really good look at _Bruce's_-

Tony blinked. The last of the green had faded now. The Hulk was gone, and it was just Bruce Banner, curled up next to him, fast asleep.

Completely naked.

He wondered if that part had occurred to either of his _team mates_, when they'd decided to abandon him here.

Rogers? Probably not.

Barton? Yeah. Almost definitely.

Tony thought about very, _very_ carefully shifting out from under the other man and making a run for it. Discretion, valor. All of that.

Then Bruce shifted against him, turning his cheek into Tony's shoulder, and the angle was just right so that he could see his - well - _friend's_ face, and somehow his brain hung, all that software spinning cycles going nowhere, stuck on the strangely-peaceful expression he found there.

Bruce... didn't _do_ a lot of peaceful.

Well. Discretion and valor had never really been part of his vocabulary, anyway.

So Tony stayed where he was, tipping his head back, and stared up at the clouds. Soon, he told himself, after the sun finished setting, it would start to get cold. That would wake Bruce up, if nothing else.

Because of the naked.

Okay, he should probably stop thinking about that now.

Thankfully, it couldn't have been more than another half hour before Bruce made a noise against him and slowly pushed himself upright, but Tony had still been in better moods.

Which was why, when Bruce opened bleary eyes and then looked down at himself and then jolted back like he'd been scalded, Tony propped himself up on a comfortable elbow and said, "Was it good for you, too, honey?"

"Oh god," Bruce said, his eyes widening.

"I mean," Tony went on, reaching up to push his hair out of his eyes in the most rakish way he knew how - and he was _good_ at rakish, "I know I had fun. And those noises you were making? Sounded pretty complimentary. But a guy likes to hear it in _words_."

"Oh god," Bruce said again, and this time he stood up - and noticed their surroundings, for what was obviously the first time.

Weirdly enough, he didn't immediately look reassured. Tony made a mental note of that. Apparently, Bruce Banner thought you could get laid in the middle of World War III, possibly from experience. Points for him.

And apparently the idea that he'd gotten laid _here_, with Tony, was causing more shock than horror. He definitely seemed more interested, at any rate, in the damage around them. That was worth another note.

"Pepper," Bruce said abruptly. "Oh god."

Even _more_ not, exactly, horror. Another note.

"Oh, it's cool," Tony told him nonchalantly. "Open relationship. Actually, she likes it when I bring the guys home."

"Oh god."

Tony pushed himself up to his feet, carefully. He had most of the feeling back in his legs, but he also had a lot of experience with overestimating how much feeling he had in his legs. "Maybe we should go through the capitals or something, buddy, because this is starting to sound like brain damage."

Finally, Bruce actually turned to look at him, eyes darting over his face - and then it seemed to click, slowly.

"...You're a bastard," he said, folding his arms over his chest, but his mouth looked like it was having a real hard time fighting off the smile.

Tony grinned for him. "And you need a new pair of pants, Doctor," he said, which prompted one last, "Oh god," as Bruce suddenly dropped down to the ground again for what little modesty crouching provided him.

All it really did was show off other parts of him that Tony hadn't had a great look at before, but which were definitely not bad on the eyes.

More mental notes.

"Hey," he said, "don't you worry. Just hide behind some rubble, and I'll be right back. What are you, a 38"?"

Bruce gave him a slightly weird look, which Tony interpreted to mean: yes. Except that then he said, "You, uh, you don't have to buy me anything."

Tony paused, then stepped on the button that turned his metal briefcase back into a very stylish metal suit. "Being friends with me comes with all kinds of perks," he said, in a mostly normal tone of voice.

But all he could think was, _Maybe there's room for a _little_ more weird today, after all._


End file.
